Otherppl with Brad Listi

Meghan Daum is the guest. Her new essay collection, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, is available now from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.  Hilton Als says “I think it’s fair to say that I can’t tell you what Meghan Daum’s remarkable book means to me—the exceptional often denies verbalization. Her diverse subject matter aside—Mom, Joni Mitchell, the fetishization of food—it’s Daum’s galvanizing energy that one finds so attractive; nowhere in her work is there evidence of the ‘trance’ that Virginia Woolf said characterized so many women’s lives. Instead, Daum builds her various worlds out of great presence and imagination, and who wouldn’t want to live in her new city?” And Geoff Dyer says “The Unspeakable is a fantastic collection of essays: funny, clever, and moving (often at the same time), never more universal than in its most personal moments (in other words, throughout), and written with enviable subtlety, precision, and spring.” Monologue topics:  mail, dead animals, sleep, naps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hannah Pittard is the guest. Her new novel is called Reunion, and it is available now from Grand Central Publishing.  Emily St. John Mandel calls it "A nuanced and intriguing study of family and love, money and debt, failure and success, starring one of the most likeable flawed narrators to come along in some time." And Publishers Weekly calls it "Emotionally astute...When this family of sorts gathers in Atlanta for the funeral, there is tension, pain, comedy, and finally, some healing and resolution. Kate is a winning narrator, whose insights into herself and her family keep the pages turning." Monologue topics:  wheat, internet holes, movies, Birdman, Gone Girl.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bich Minh Nguyen is the guest. Her new novel, Pioneer Girl, is available now from Viking. The San Francisco Chronicle calls it "[A] sincere and moving novel... a surprising synthesis of the personal and the public, the intimate and the epic, the historical and the fictional. Nguyen takes two disparate strands of our national mythology and weaves them into a powerful and wholly original American saga." And Kirkus Reviews says "Nguyen has a perceptive understanding of the tension between mothers and daughters and the troubling insights to be gained from digging into the past. An unexpected pleasure, with a well-drawn and compelling narrator." Monologue topics: Las Vegas, pot, gambling, losing, winning, ethics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frederick Barthelme is the guest. His latest novel, There Must Be Some Mistake, is available now from Little, Brown & Co. David Shields says "Very nearly alone among his peers, Frederick Barthelme has, over the last thirty-five years, written fiction about what it actually feels like to live in contemporary post-religious, hyper-mediated America. And—even more of a rarity—he works hard to find a way to somehow tolerate/celebrate, with enormous subtlety and without an ounce of sentimentality, our bare-bones existence. In There Must Be Some Mistake, Barthelme has distilled his brutal, crucial vision into useable essence." And Publishers Weekly says "Barthelme, a master of minimalist suburbia-set fiction, returns with a buoyantly offbeat murder tale that doubles as a meditation on everything from contemporary art to Google to mortality... Throughout the novel, his narration provides punchy, wry commentary on the banality of pop culture, but the tone is, ultimately, infectiously optimistic." Monologue topics: mail, food, animal rights, Sarah Gerard, not voting, apathy, George Carlin.***Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.Support the show on PatreonMerch@otherpplInstagram YouTubeTikTokEmail the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] comThe podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth McCracken is the guest. Her latest book is a story collection called Thunderstruck & Other Stories, and it is available now from The Dial Press. The New York Times Book Review says “Elizabeth McCracken knows how loss can melt reality, forever altering a person’s sense of time....In her new collection, McCracken gives brilliantly splintered life to just that kind of story....The fact that there is nothing depressing about the ubiquity of accident and disaster in Thunderstruck & Other Stories is a powerful testament to the scratchy humor and warm intelligence of McCracken’s writing....Her wisdom and wit have a moral dimension that deepens our sympathy for her straying souls.... [A] restorative, unforgettable collection.” And Nick Hornby says “Elizabeth McCracken is one of my favorite writers. Or, to put it another way: I’ve read everything she’s written...and there’s nothing I haven’t liked and admired enormously...She writes with acuity, soul, and a kind of easy grace that probably kills her, about characters she has created to love.... Thunderstruck showcases all the things this remarkable writer is so good at: the eccentric but illuminating metaphors, the deft characterization, the heart-lurching narrative development, the tenderness, the fantastic aphorisms....Anything new by her is an excuse for wild, drunken celebration.” Monologue topics: mail, Christianity, Jesus, God, confusion.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Gerard is the guest. Her debut novel, Binary Star, is due out from Two Dollar Radio in January 2015. Kate Zambreno says "I felt a breathless intensity the whole time I read Sarah Gerard's brilliant Binary Star. I sped through it, dizzy, devastated, loving all of it." And Jenny Offill calls it "A bold, beautiful novel about wanting to disappear and almost succeeding. Sarah Gerard writes about love and loneliness in a new and brilliantly visceral way." Monologue topics: Legoland, fear, masks, chaos, exhaustion, fire alarms, meth, cops, neighbors, pandemonium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lin Enger is the guest. His new novel, The High Divide, is available now from Algonquin Books. It is the official October selection of The TNB Book Club. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, calls it "[A] masterfully told Western reinvention of Homer’s Odyssey...Set against a backdrop of beauty and danger, this is the moving story of a man coming to terms with his past. In its narrative simplicity and emotional directness, it is reminiscent of John Ford’s classic The Searchers." And Library Journal, in a starred review, says "Moving through the High Divide--'the rough country between the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers'--even as its characters move through important divides, or turning points, of their own, Enger's novel is told in beautifully exact, liquid language that wastes no time, just as one cannot afford to waste time when making a journey such as the Pope family's. Highly recommended." Monologue topics: exhaustion, going to the doctor, Legoland, fear, loathing.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diane Cook is the guest. Her debut story collection, Man V. Nature, is available now from Harper Books. Tea Obreht says "Man V. Nature is as close to experiencing a Picasso as literature can get: the worlds in Diane Cook’s impressive debut are bizarre, vertiginous, funny, pushed to the extreme-but just familiar enough in their nuances of the human condition to evoke an irresistible, around-the-corner reality.” And the Boston Globe says “Here’s a good rule: If Diane Cook wrote it, read it…Safety is tenuous, if not an illusion, in her thoughtful, unsettling, and darkly funny collection.” Monologue topics: Kathleen Hale, Blythe Harris, don't feed trolls, Goodreads, stalking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Celeste Ng is the guest. Her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, is now available from Penguin.  The New York Times Book Review says "If we know this story, we haven’t seen it yet in American fiction, not until now… Ng has set two tasks in this novel’s doubled heart—to be exciting, and to tell a story bigger than whatever is behind the crime. She does both by turning the nest of familial resentments into at least four smaller, prickly mysteries full of secrets the family members won’t share… What emerges is a deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history, and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind—a burden you do not always survive." And the LA Times calls it "[A]n accomplished debut... It's also heart-wrenching. Ng deftly pulls together the strands of this complex, multigenerational novel. Everything I Never Told You is an engaging work that casts a powerful light on the secrets that have kept an American family together — and that finally end up tearing it apart." Monologue topics: Halloween, costume parties, ebola, comedy, missed opportunities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mira Jacob is the guest. Her debut novel, The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing, is now available from Random House. Kirkus, in a starred review, says "Comparisons of Jacob to Jhumpa Lahiri are inevitable; Lahiri may be more overtly profound, Jacob more willing to go for comedy, but both write with naked honesty about the uneasy generational divide among Indians in America and about family in all its permutations.” And the Boston Globe calls it “Beautifully wrought, frequently funny, gently heartbreaking . . . Moving forward and back in time, Jacob balances comedy and romance with indelible sorrow, and she is remarkably adept at tonal shifts. When her plot springs surprises, she lets them happen just as they do in life: blindsidingly right in the middle of things.” Monologue topics: mail, scripts, the emotional demands this podcast places on me, outtakes, ebola, The Fear, end times, zombie apocalypse.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices